


"I know an angel."

by InterstellarVagabond



Series: Raising Hell [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Child Death, Crowley's past, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other, the 19th century depression nap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 02:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19879822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterstellarVagabond/pseuds/InterstellarVagabond
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley have a night in, and it goes well until something in the movie they're watching reminds Crowley of a painful memory.





	"I know an angel."

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: I don't know jack about history so vague and possibly incorrect history ahead
> 
> this is a heavy one proceed with caution

Crowley sat just outside the bedroom.

He was staring down at the floorboards, and he was squeezing the life out of his hat. 

He could hear the clock downstairs ticking away far too loud, and he closed his eyes.

The bedroom door opened and Crowley surged to his feet, anxiously waiting for the doctor to turn around and say something.

In the end the man said nothing, only shook his head.

Crowley went to sleep a week later, and didn't wake up for the better part of a century.

  


“I still can’t believe the audacity of that woman,” Aziraphale huffed, making himself comfortable on Crowley’s couch. The demon himself was walking back into the room with a pair of wine glasses for the bottle Aziraphale had brought over. 

“Yeah, trying to buy a book from your book _shop_ how dare she,” he replied, amused sarcasm dripping from his words. 

“Well, I don’t think she had to call me quite so many names,” Aziraphale said. “There’s a way these things are done, and inquiring after a manager is certainly not one of them.”

“I can’t believe this is your first time with that kind of customer,” Crowley said, pouring their drinks. “You use a miracle on that? Cause that’s what it takes. A miracle.”

“Well, anyway,” Aziraphale sighed. “What about you? Did you keep busy this past weekend?”

Crowley handed Aziraphale his drink and then flopped down on the couch next to him, limbs tossed about like a skinny marionette with the strings cut. Aziraphale quickly adhered himself to Crowley’s side, and the serpent happily accommodated Aziraphale’s comfortable presence. 

“Not really,” he answered. “Thought about finding the nearest college campus and crashing their wifi for a laugh but I ended up just watching Netflix for hours instead.”

“While I’m glad for those poor students, I can’t believe you spent all weekend watching television just to invite me over for a movie,” Aziraphale said. “We should probably take you outside to see the sun again.”

“Oh no! I’ll melt!” Crowley chuckled, wrapping an arm around Aziraphale and pressing a kiss to his temple. “You know you’re not actually supposed to watch the movie when someone charming and beautiful invites you over for one, right?”

“Well, I’ll keep that in mind for when someone charming and beautiful finally does,” Aziraphale replied smugly, earning himself a light smack on the back of the head. 

Crowley let Aziraphale pick the movie and immediately regretted it as the angel chose some boring drama that had probably been pushed to the recesses of Netflix for a reason. He at least had Aziraphale and the blanket he’d miracled up to drape around the pair of them, and it was nice just laying against him drinking wine and making fun of the drier scenes while Aziraphale tried to make him stop with hushing and poking. 

Aziraphale was quite enjoying the film himself, and though he would never admit it he was also enjoying Crowley’s ongoing commentary, so he noticed quickly when it stopped. 

“Oh dear, how tragic,” Aziraphale said, watching as the main character sobbed on screen, holding his dead child in his arms. “Though honestly, a bit predictable. Maybe you were right about this one, it seems the writers just wanted to shock the audience as much as possible. Do you think his dog will die next? Is that the order? Wife, child, dog?”

Crowley, who had long ago slipped down to lay his head in Aziraphale’s lap, was quiet. 

For a moment Aziraphale wondered if he’d fallen asleep, but then Crowley sat up and reached for the sunglasses he’d taken off and left on the coffee table when Aziraphale arrived. He slid them carefully on, then he cleared his throat.

“Refill?” he asked, grabbing his glass and gesturing to Aziraphale’s. 

“I think we’re all out actually,” Aziraphale said, but Crowley just shrugged and took the glass anyway. He walked off towards the kitchen, and Aziraphale peered after him. He paused the movie with a wave of his hand, neither of the pair ever bothered to use the actual pause function, and then followed after Crowley. 

Something wasn’t quite right.

Aziraphale lingered in the entryway to the kitchen, blanket still wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak. He watched as Crowley abandoned their glasses on the counter and reached into a cabinet for a pair of tumblers instead.

“Thought I’d break out something a little stronger,” he said, and indeed he went rummaging through his collection of liquors until he found something that looked expensive and painful to drink. 

His hands were shaking slightly as he poured, and Aziraphale drew slowly closer.

“Crowley, is everything alright?”

Crowley handed Aziraphale a glass and raised his own. “Cheers,” he said, before gulping it down. 

Aziraphale set his own drink aside, and Crowley started pouring himself another. 

“Maybe you ought to slow down, there,” Aziraphale said, watching Crowley drain another glass.

“Hm,” Crowley grunted in response, laying his hands on the counter and leaning heavily onto them. He stood there for a moment, silence growing between them. 

“Did something upset you?” Aziraphale asked. 

“Yeah,” Crowley answered, his honesty surprising Aziraphale. He pushed his sunglasses up just long enough to rub at his eyes like they were sore, before letting them fall back into place. He took Aziraphale’s untouched drink, but this time he sipped slowly at it. “Yeah, something did.”

Aziraphale dropped the blanket, and walked over to lay a hand on Crowley’s arm. The demon didn’t even seem to notice the touch, he was still staring into the distance. He took a long shaky breath and then he turned to Aziraphale.

“Her name was Phoebe,” he said, taking another drink to punctuate the simple sentence.

“Who?” Aziraphale asked.

“My daughter,” Crowley answered.

Aziraphale felt as though the world had stopped spinning under him, the shock hitting him like a bolt of lightning. 

Crowley lowered himself to the ground, taking a seat and leaning back against the lower cabinets without care for how the handles and door edges pushed into his back. Aziraphale joined him on the floor, breaking his stunned silence.

“What?” he asked. “How? When?”

“1820,” Crowley said. “I found her on a job.”

Aziraphale sensed a story, and pulled himself closer to Crowley. He took one of the demon’s hands, and Crowley looked down at the touch for a moment before continuing. 

“I was supposed to tempt this business owner, details aren’t really important. All that matters is I was in his home and the job was going well, until there was a noise from upstairs. He was busy with the other guests, and I was curious so I snuck off to take a look. One of the rooms upstairs was locked, and I thought that was interesting so I opened it and inside there was… this girl. Scared looking and way, way too thin. A little bruised up. I didn’t like the look of it, and I knew hell already had ahold of this man so I decided to take her.”

Crowley remembered stepping through the doorway, and Phoebe shrinking back. He’d knelt down, cocked his head to the side and asked her name. When she didn’t answer, he gave her his. 

_“Crowley,” he said pointing to himself. “Nice to meet you.”_

_She looked him up and down suspiciously with wide eyes. Then she finally spoke in a trembling voice._

_“Why are you here?”_

_“I heard something, and I wanted to see what it was,” Crowley said calmly and honestly._

_“I’ll get in trouble if the door is open,” she whispered back._

_“No one will see it open if I don’t want them too,” Crowley answered._

_“How?” she asked. “Are you magic?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Are you a monster?”_

_“Sort of. Does that scare you?”_

_She shook her head. “You don’t look scary.”_

_“Not right now, anyway,” Crowley said. “I can be pretty scary.”_

_“Not as scary as he is,” she answered._

_Crowley nodded, and stood back up. He started thinking to himself, puzzling out the mess he now found himself in. He was still thinking when Phoebe walked over to him._

_“Will you help me?” she asked. “If you’re a monster, you can scare away my father, right?”_

_“... I’m a demon, actually,” Crowley said, and Phoebe nodded. Crowley looked at her, frail and so terrified of her own father that a demon in her bedroom didn’t scare her in the least._

_He made a decision._

“You told her you’re a demon?” Aziraphale asked.

“Why not?” Crowley shrugged. “She asked.”

“And you just snuck her out?” 

“I went back downstairs and had drinks with her father and his associates, and put the idea of a nice drunken sleep in their heads. Then I went back upstairs for her, and we left together,” Crowley said. “I already had a place, not this one this came way later, and I didn’t really need the bedroom anyway so I let her stay with me while I tried to figure out what to do with her. Trouble is nothing ever seemed safe enough. The orphanages were already overflowing with sickly looking unwanted kids, she didn’t have any other family or at least she didn’t know if she did, she was a little too old to be left on the doorstep of some purehearted couple who’d asked God for a child so… I just sort of… ended up… keeping her.”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale said softly, and though he knew this story ended sadly somehow he still felt his heart warming at the thought of the demon taking in a child. 

“And she was incredible,” Crowley said, his voice a bit tearful, but full of pride. “She was amazing, Aziraphale, really. Smart as anything, brave, always asking questions. She was a menace at bedtime, a real natural for mischief.”

“She sounds lovely,” Aziraphale said.

“Yeah, she was,” Crowley said, looking down at his half empty glass and draining the rest. “And then she got sick. She was so much better than me, Aziraphale. She was so much better, and despite every doctor I paid and every bit of demonic will I put into her, she died. That’s the thing about humans, they die so easily and you can’t stop it if it’s their time, so it didn’t matter how wonderful she was, she died anyway and I lived and isn’t that just the most unfair thing you’ve ever heard?”

Aziraphale knew Crowley was crying even though he had his sunglasses on, because he was crying too and he was just hearing the story secondhand. 

“Ineffable plan…” Crowley snorted. “Where a little girl dies and a demon keeps living.”

Aziraphale squeezed Crowley’s hand, and Crowley leaned his head onto the angel’s shoulder, sniffling a bit. 

“I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale said. 

Crowley didn’t answer. He was caught up in the memory of sitting by her bedside, one hand pushing sweat-sticky hair off her pale forehead. 

“Hnh,” he said eloquently, sliding down the cabinets until he was laying on the floor with only his head propped up. He held his empty glass on his stomach and let his fingers tap erratically against it. 

Aziraphale stood up, and stepped away for a moment. When he returned he had a glass of water. He knelt down and offered it to Crowley, swapping it for the other one. He helped Crowley sit up to take a sip, and ran his fingers through his hair. Crowley was limp and Aziraphale wasn’t about to make him sober up just yet, but he didn’t want him lying drunk and heartbroken on the floor so he scooped him up into his arms. Crowley sighed and lay his head on Aziraphale’s chest, as he was carried back to the living room. 

Aziraphale turned off the TV with a nod, settled Crowley down on the couch, and went back for the blanket he’d left in the kitchen. When he came back, Crowley was sitting back up, sunglasses on the table again and a the heel of his palm pressed into his forehead. His eyes were squeezed shut. 

Aziraphale draped the blanket around Crowley’s shoulders, and then sat down and pulled him into his arms. 

“Not exactly a proper date night,” Crowley muttered.

“Now hush,” Aziraphale said, kissing his forehead. "You just let me know what you need, alright?"

"Mmh. This is nice already," Crowley said, turning his face to nuzzle into the crook of Aziraphale's neck. Warm and safe in the angel's arms, he found himself drifting off. He tried valiantly to stay awake despite the siren song of whiskey, wine, and warmth, but Aziraphale steadfastly lulled him to sleep with soft whispers and a hand rubbing his back.

_"Hey, papa."_

_"Mm?"_

_Crowley shifted in the bed, realizing he'd been falling asleep. Phoebe was still laying in the inner curve of his wing, tucked up against his side. Her coughing had stopped awhile back so he assumed she'd finally fallen asleep herself._

_"You're a demon."_

_"That's news to me."_

_She laughed and shoved him, and a faint smile flickered onto his lips._

_"I mean…" she paused, taking a shuddering breath. "You know, right?"_

_"Know what?"_

_"What's gonna happen to me."_

_Crowley shifted uncomfortably, biting his tongue till he tasted blood._

_"That's… not really my department, sweetheart," he said softly._

_"You could…" she swallowed nervously, turning to face away from him. "... help me do something really bad. Then I'd…"_

_"Absolutely not," Crowley hissed._

_They both grew quiet, both feeling guilt and fear settle into their bones. Then Crowley lifted his wing slightly so Phoebe would slid back towards him._

_"Tell you what," he said. "I know an angel. I'll have him put in a good word for you."_

_"I don't know this angel," Phoebe said sullenly. "I know you."_

_"You'll like him, he's easy to pick on," Crowley said. "And he's really nice, and he reads almost as much as you do."_

_"Does he like Jane Austen?"_

_"I'm sure he does."_

_Crowley waited for her assessment of this angel he was assigning her, but it didn't come. He looked over and saw she'd fallen asleep, breathing softly with her fingers clutching his feathers. His heart ached, as he leaned over to press a kiss to her forehead. Someday soon, he would never see her again, she'd be heaven's property and he most certainly was not._

_For now they were together, though, and he wasn't going to waste that time thinking about what it was going to be like without her. He'd have an eternity for that._


End file.
